The fall of Edessa to Imad al-Din Zengi sparks the Second Crusade. Two great crusading armies assemble in Western Europe - a German army led by King Conrad III and a French army led by King Louis VII. As the crusading armies converge on Anatolia, seeking passage to the Holy Land, the Emperor of the Romans and the Sultan of Rum join forces to oppose them. The German army decides to march along the route taken by the First Crusaders, and Sultan Mesud seeks redemption on the plains of Dorylaeum...

Following the death of the Danishmend King Muhammad, Mesud is finally the pre-eminent Turkish potentate in Anatolia. With the Sultanate of Rum rejuvenated, he now sets out to conquer. Meanwhile, a new Emperor dons the purple in Constantinople, and goes to war with the new master of Turkish Anatolia. And yet again, an army of invasion begins mustering in the West...

The messengers from the Caliph in Baghdad and Sanjar, the Great Sultan of the East, arrive in Kastamonu to find that Emir Ghazi has died before they could proclaim him as King. Instead, his son Muhammad is granted the title - inevitably leading to conflict between this new King of the North and the Sultan of Rum in Konya. War erupts between and among a shifting web of alliances of Turks, Greeks, Crusaders and Armenians. And Sultan Mesud ultimately emerges as the leading power of Turkish Anatolia.